Although, as is my wont, this blog is rather ambitiously scoped to support increasing syntropy in local Universe, I deeply understand that trial-and-error is the only way we humans learn. So I expect to make a lot of mistakes (the alternative is to learn too little which is less interesting).

With your help, dear reader, and your feedback, I am sure that we can work through any issues and work together “in support of eternally regenerative Universe” (a Buckminster Fuller expression that I particularly like).

5 Responses to “Welcome to the Syntropy Blog”

Hi CJ. Josh Pang here. We’ve met before at some of the BI Events. (this is where I took a picture of myself with Mac Photobooth and tried to drag and drop here, but to no avail.) I appreciate your use of Syntropy, as it is our only meaning to each other. “Seeking feedback” — well, I hope we can collaborate on some pressing problems in life. Before I head onto comment on Education Automation, I wanted to thank you for your work. I have followed you on your Home Page, the Collaborative, read an article or two from FOSS, listened to your integrity speech, watched all the Syn Coll. videos, followed you on Facebook but I have gotten behind on Ted Talks. Anyway, you’ve been a great teacher “out in space” and we’ve been friendly in person.
Au Revoir
-Josh

C.J., you asked me to explain Vedanta. Here is a simple outline of what Asia Vedanta is all about. There are three schools. I have outlined the three for you. The compressed format of this site doesn’t look good so I am sending it to your regular email address.

Don

Vedanta Explain 04/10/2010

by Swami Vivekananda (1896) and recorded here, greatly simplified in outline form. Complied by Don and Moo Briddell

1. Advaitism, the monistic (non-dual) side of India philosophy
• Minority view
2. Two divisions of Indian Philosophy
a. Orthodox – has the Vedas as eternal revelations of truth.
i. Sankhyas – failed to form a sect, no info given
ii. Naiyayikas – failed to form a sect, no info given
iii. Mimamsakas – now dominate. Also called “Vedantists”
b. Unorthadox – reject Vedas and stand on other authorities (Jains & Buddhists)
c. Heterodox – did not see that Vivekananada described this.
3. Vedantism is the Mimamsaka division of Indian Philosophy that superseded the others.
a. Three schools of Vedantism,
i. Dualists,
ii. Qualified Non-Dualists,
iii. Non-dualists
b. All believe Vedas are the revealed knowledge of God,
c. Creation goes through cyclical changes of growth and decay
d. Postulate Akasha is like the ether (aether) in physics.
e. Akasha is prana (energy) and produces the universe as a vibration of prana
f. Everything is manufactured form Akasha through the agency of prana
g. Even thoughts, feelings, as well as matter is a manifestation of prana
h. Cycles are started by prana vibration, which act on Akasha to produce form and all forms are derived in a hierarchy.
4. First school of Vedanta is the dualists
a. Believe God is the creator and is eternally separate form Nature and
b. Eternally separate from the human soul.
c. God, Nature and Souls are all eternal but all separate, exists independently
d. Nature and Souls change but God remains the same.
e. God is personal, has no body, but has qualities,
f. God has human attributes such as just, merciful, powerful, willfulness
g. God can be loved, approached, prayed to
h. The dualist God is a human God
i. None of man’s evil qualities
j. There is an undifferentiated Nature and out of that God creates the universe.
k. All Western religion and Biblical religions are dualists since they all believe man is forever distinct from God.
l. Conceives of higher spiritual ideas by personalizing them and putting them in terms he can understand, “his own level”. Anthropromorphic universe cosmology.
m. Believe God entirely separate from humans.
n. God is only good (and man is forever shrouded by evil, DB commentary).
o. Vivekananda does not agree with the Dualists
p. Indian dualists did not create of devil, but lay the blame for evil on man.
q. Vivekananda agrees with item p.
r. Western dualists think the devil is to blame for evil in the world.
s. Dualists believe in karma.
t. Vedantic Indian dualists believe every soul comes to salvation. No one is left out.
u. Western biblical cosmology has eternal damnation and eternal salvation.
v. Vedantic dualists postulate an eternal heaven for individual souls, but no hell. Earthly life is hell.
w. All life forms have a soul, including plants and animals. Souls can evolve through all the forms of life, but life never ends. Even Gods are imperfect and evolve.
x. What is the bondage, all things? Even Gods die.
y. Gods are officers, holder of states of being. Anyone can hold god-like offices.
z. A soul can fill god-like offices. Men desire to be a god and gods can desire to be humans. Salvation is not the product of reward for good deeds. Having higher office is a reward but that is not salvation.
aa. Only through a human incarnation can liberation occur. Work does not liberation.
bb. Desires cause reincarnation. Clinging to me and mine are the cause of bondage.
cc. Protest against praying to God to get material things. Beseech saints and sages for favors but not God. God is only to be adored.

5. Qualified Non-Dualists (QND)
a. The effect is not different from the cause.
b. God and the universe are one and the same.
c. Something can never come out of nothing. (DB: The caused is a fractal iteration of the cause).
d. Purusha (consciousness) and Prakriti (the stuff from which the universe is made) are the same thing.
e. How then can evil and ignorance exist? QND says that good/bad, evil/rightousness are manifestations of God. We have to see it that way. (God is paradox and has to be accepted as such).
f. Our job is remanifest God qualities. Each of us has to go through a evolution. We are to become God-like. That is our intention and natural instinct. Even our exploration of evil and ignorance is purposeful. We get to see viscerally the folly of those pursuits and hence learn, evolve and become consciousness.
g. QND can have a personal God.
h. Souls become God.

6. Advaitism (AD)
a. The ultimate highest expression of religion. It cannot be argued.
b. Too abstruse to be a popular religious expression.
c. Not a “comfortable” religion.
d. Like the QND, God and universe are the same, except neither exists. AD sees behind God and Universe to see they are delusions.
e. We dream the God and dream universe. It is vibration, a shimmering reality. Universe has no solid form and neither does God.
f. Take away all names and all forms and you will find the universe is one. Zen koans take away the form, as “what is the sound of one hand clapping”.
g. (DB: All knots are on a string and the string is an illusion).
h. One soul and not two. No absolute reality to the Atman/Para-Atman relationship.
i. All our ideas of heaven, hell, and earthly life do not exist because reality is not to be understood or known in any kind of temporal or spatial context.
j. Advaitist overthrows the substantiality of the universe, even God. Truth is beyond even these lofty notions.
k. I worship myself, say the Advaitist, because only I exist and I am indescribable.
l. When we get help, it is because we help ourselves.
m. God is I, I am God, and this little I never existed nor does a separate God exist. This is why word pictures of reality are useless, why mediation, quiet and stillness are supremely powerful.
n. Illusion arises from illusion, truth arises from truth. Distinguish what is real from what is unreal. Individual being-ness is an illusion, as is the illusion of God imagined by the individual.
o. I is plural. It is I who am all things. I am the universe. I am not this universe.
p. “The scriptures of the world are but little maps wanting to delineate my glory.” Vivekananda
q. See it as one for it is one thing only…beingness and has no attributes.

Summation
Began with the personal and an external cosmic God, (Dualism)
Then God becomes immanent in the universe. (Qualified Monism)
Ends with the soul indentified with the cosmic soul so the two merge into one and all duality including time and space, individual self and cosmic self disappear for want of distinctions (Monism).